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ms(c<s)m/*\v.'\: 


LIBRARY 

OF  THI: 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


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or  THB 

DIVERSITY 


DECORATED 

BY 
WILL  H  LOW 


HAMILTON 
WRIGHT 
AABIE 


[NEW  YORK  PUBLISHED  BY  DODD   'I 
SWEAD  AND  COMPANY  MDCCCXCIX  § 


Copyright,  IS9I,  1^3,  1898,  ^  Dodd, Mead,  and  Company 


1 1031 


The  University  Press,  Cambridge,  U.  S.  A. 


IN  THE  FOREST  OF  ARDEN 


Go  with  me :  if  you  like,  upon  report, 
The  soil,  the  profit,  and  this  kind  of  life, 
I  will  your  very  faithful  factor  be, 
And  buy  it  with  your  gold  right  suddenly 


•-•••  •' 


AND  I  FOR  ROSALIND" 


Under  the  greenwood  tree, 
Who  loves  to  lie  with  me, 
And  turn  his  merry  note 
Unto  the  sweet  bird's  throat, 
Come  hither,  come  hither,  come  hither 


m 


~"" 


V, 


Rosalind  had  just  laid  a  spray  of 
apple  blossoms  on  the  study  table. 

"Well,"  I  said,  "when  shall  we 
start?" 

44  To-morrow." 

Rosalind  has  a  habit  of  swift  deci 
sion  when  she  has  settled  a  question 
in  her  own  mind,  and  I  was  not  sur 
prised  when  she  replied  with  a  single 
decisive  word.  But  she  also  has  a 
habit  of  making  thorough  preparation 
for  any  undertaking,  and  now  she  was 
quietly  proposing  to  go  off  for  the 
summer  the  very  next  day,  and  not  a 
trunk  was  packed,  not  a  seat  secured 
in  any  train,  not  a  movement  made 
toward  any  winding  up  of  household 
affairs.  I  had  great  faith  in  her  ability 
to  execute  her  plans  with  celerity, 
but  I  doubted  whether  she  could  be 
ready  to  turn  the  key  in  the  door,  bid 
farewell  to  the  milkman  and  the 
butcher,  and  start  the  very  next  day 


for  the  Forest  of  Arden.  For  several 
past  seasons  we  had  planned  this  bold 
excursion  into  a  country  which  few 
persons  have  seemed  to  know  much 
about  since  the  day  when  a  poet  of 
great  fame,  familiar  with  many  strange 
climes  and  peoples,  found  his  way 
thither  and  shared  the  golden  fortune  of 
his  journey  with  all  the  world*  Winter 
after  winter,  before  the  study  fire,  we 
had  made  merry  plans  for  this  trip 
into  the  magical  forest;  we  had  dis 
cussed  the  best  methods  of  travelling 
where  no  roads  led;  we  had  enjoyed 
in  anticipation  the  surmises  of  our 
neighbours  concerning  our  unexplained 
absence,  and  the  delightful  mystery 
which  would  always  linger  about  us 
when  we  had  returned,  with  memories 
of  a  landscape  which  no  eyes  but  ours 
had  seen  these  many  years,  and  of 
rare  and  original  people  whose  voices 
had  been  silent  in  common  speech  so 


many  generations  that  only  a  few 
dreamers  like  ourselves  even  remem 
bered  that  they  had  ever  spoken.  We 
had  looked  along  the  library  shelves 
for  the  books  we  should  take  with  us, 
until  we  remembered  that  in  that  coun 
try  there  were  books  in  the  running 
streams*  Rosalind  had  gone  so  far  as 
to  lay  aside  a  certain  volume  of  ser 
mons  whose  aspiring  note  had  more 
than  once  made  music  of  the  momen 
tary  discords  of  her  life ;  but  I  reminded 
her  that  such  a  work  would  be  strangely 
out  of  place  in  a  forest  where  there  were 
sermons  in  stones.  Finally  we  had  de 
cided  to  leave  books  behind  and  go  free- 
minded  as  well  as  free-hearted*  It  had 
been  a  serious  question  how  much  and 
what  apparel  we  should  take  with  us, 
and  that  point  was  still  unsettled  when 
the  apple  trees  came  to  their  blossom 
ing*  It  is  a  theory  of  mine  that  the 
chief  delight  of  a  vacation  from  one's 


usual     occupations     is     freedom     from  V 
the  tyranny   of    plans   and   dates,   and  * 
thus  much   Rosalind   had   conceded  to  j; 
me. 

There  had  been  an  irresistible  charm  | 
in  the  very  secrecy  which  protected  our  | 
adventure  from  the  curious  and  unsym-  | 
pathetic  comment  of  the  world.  We  $ 
found  endless  pleasure  in  imagining  | 
what  this  and  that  good  neighbour  of  | 
ours  would  say  about  the  folly  of  leav- 1 
ing  a  comfortable  house,  good  beds,  and  | 
a  well-stocked  larder  for  the  hard  fare  | 
and  uncertain  shelter  of  a  strange  forest.  | 
44  For  my  part,"  we  gleefully  heard  Mrs.  | 
Grundy  declare,  — 44  for  my  part,  I  can 
not  understand  why  two  people  old 
enough  to  know  better  should  make 
tramps  of  themselves  and  go  rambling 
about  a  piece  of  woods  that  nobody 
ever  heard  of,  in  the  heat  of  the  mid 
summer."  Poor  Mrs.  Grundy!  We 
could  well  afford  to  laugh  merrily  at 


her  scornful  expostulations;  for  while 
she  was  repeating  platitudes  to  over 
dressed  and  uninteresting  people  at  Old- 
port,  we  should  be  making  sunny  play 
of  life  with  men  and  women  whose 
thoughts  were  free  as  the  wind,  and 
whose  hearts  were  fresh  as  the  dew 
and  the  stars.  And  often  when  our  talk 
had  died  into  silence,  and  the  wind  with 
out  whistled  to  the  fire  within,  we  had 
fallen  to  dreaming  of  those  shadowy 
aisles  arched  by  the  mighty  trees,  and 
of  the  splendid  pageant  that  should 
make  life  seem  as  great  and  rich  as 
Nature  herself.  I  confess  that  all  my 
dreams  came  to  one  ending;  that  I 
should  suddenly  awake  in  some  golden 
hour  and  really  know  Rosalind.  Of 
course  I  had  been  coming,  through  all 
these  years,  to  know  something  about 
Rosalind;  but  in  this  busy  world,  with 
work  to  be  done,  and  bills  to  be  paid, 
and  people  to  be  seen,  and  journeys  to 


f 


be  made,  and  friction  and  worry  and 
fatigue  to  be  borne,  how  can  we  really 
come  to  know  one  another  ?  We  may 
meet  the  vicissitudes  and  changes  side 
by  side ;  we  may  work  together  in  the 
long  days  of  toil ;  our  hearts  may  repose 
on  a  common  trust,  our  thoughts  travel 
a  common  road ;  but  how  rarely  do  we 
come  to  the  hour  when  the  pressure  of 
toil  is  removed,  the  clouds  of  anxiety 
melt  into  blue  sky,  and  in  the  whole 
world  nothing  remains  but  the  sun  on 
the  flower,  and  the  song  in  the  trees, 
and  the  unclouded  light  of  love  in  the 
eyes? 

I  dreamed,  too,  that  in  finding  Rosa 
lind  I  should  also  find  myself.  There 
were  times  when  I  had  seemed  on  the 
very  point  of  making  this  discovery, 
but  something  had  always  turned  me 
aside  when  the  quest  was  most  eager 
and  promising;  the  world  pressed  into 
the  seclusion  for  which  I  had  struggled, 


I  and  when  I  waited  to  hear  its  faintest 
murmur  die  in  the  distance,  suddenly  ther 
-,!  tumult  had  risen  again,  and  the  dream} 
i  of    self-communion   and    self-knowledge;; 
?  had  vanished*     To  get  out  of  the  uproar1 
;]  and  confusion  of  things,  I  had  often  fan- 
|  cied,  would  be  like  exchanging  the  dusty  ; 
I  mid-summer  road  for  the  shade  of  thej 
;  woods  where  the  brook  calms  the  day 
?;  with  its  pellucid  note  of  effortless  flow, 
I  and    the    hours    hide  themselves    from 
the  glances  of  the  sun*     In  the  Forest  of  • 
J  Arden  I  felt  sure  I  should  find  the  repose, 
|  the   quietude,  the  freedom   of   thought,  ^ 
$  which  would  permit  me  to  know  my- 
self*     There,   too,    I   suspected    Nature 
had    certain   surprises  for  me;    certain 
secrets    which    she    has    been    holding, 
back  for  the  fortunate  hour  when  her 
spell  would  be  supreme  and  unbroken, 
I  even  hoped  that  I  might  come  una- 
ware  upon  that  ancient   and   perennial  |£||  ^ 
movement  of  life  upon  which  I  seemed 


*?r' 


always  to  happen  the  very  second  after 
it   had   been   suspended;    that   I   might 
hear    the    note    of    the    hermit    thrush 
breaking  out  of  the  heart  of  the  forest; 
the   soulful   melody  of  the  nightingale,  i;J 
pathetic  with  unappeasable  sorrow*     In  f 
the   Forest   of   Arden,  too,  there  were  fl 
unspoiled  men  and  women,  as  indiffer-  I 
ent   to  the   fashion   of    the  world    and  I 
the  folly  of  the  hour  as  the  stars  to  the  | 
impalpable  mist  of  the  clouds  ;  men  and  | 
women  who  spoke  the  truth,  and  saw 
the  fact,  and  lived  the  right;  to  whom.. 
love    and    faith    and  high  hopes  were  f 
more   real   than   the    crowns  of  which 
they  had  been  despoiled,  and  the  king 
doms  from   which  they   had    been  re 
jected*     All  this  I  had  dreamed,  and  I 
know  not  how  many  other  brave  and 
beautiful   dreams,  and  I  was  dreaming 
them    again    when    Rosalind    laid    the 
apple  blossoms  on  the  study  table,  and 
answered,  decisively,  "Tomorrow." 


1 


''  Tomorrow/'  I  repeated,  ^to-mor 
row.  But  how  are  you  going  to 
get  ready  ?  If  you  sit  up  all  night  you 
cannot  get  through  with  the  packing. 
You  said  only  yesterday  that  your 
summer  dressmaking  was  shame 
fully  behind.  My  dear,  next  week 
is  the  earliest  possible  time  for  our 
going/' 

Rosalind  laughed  archly,  and  pushed 
the  apple  blossoms  over  the  wofully 
interlined  manuscript  of  my  new  article 
on  Egypt.  There  was  in  her  very 
attitude  a  hint  of  unsuspected  buoyancy 
and  strength;  there  was  in  her  eyes 
a  light  which  I  have  never  seen  under 
our  uncertain  skies.  The  breath  of  the  ^ 
apple  blossoms  filled  the  room,  and  a|1/j 
bobolink,  poised  on  a  branch  outside  \'H 
the  window,  suddenly  poured  a  rap-  ^ 
turous  song  into  the  silence  of  thefO 
sweet  spring  day.  I  laid  down  my  ^ 
pen,  pushed  my  scattered  sheets  into  v 


^ 

^: 


tmrn  tfjf  —  -^  . .  Zy^l^&i.  .  ,  r ; '  x,  "i«^^ 4H 


* 


--., 

the  portfolio,  covered  the  inkstand,  and  I 
-  ?  laid  my  hand  in  hers.     "  Not  to-mor-  pj;, 
row/'  I  said,  "  not  to-morrow.     Let  us  | 


V^?     i  } 

^|  go  now. 


'4-.'U      ' 


n 


Now  go  we  in  content 

To  liberty  and  not  to  banishment 


I  have  sometimes   entertained  myself  ^jS 
by  trying  to   imagine   the   impressions  fc 
which   our    modern    life    would    make  j 
upon  some  sensitive  mind  of  a  remote 
age.     I   have   fancied   myself   rambling  y- 
about     New    York    with     Montaigne, 
and  taking  note  of  his  shrewd,  satirical^ 
comment.     I   can   hardly   imagine   himj 
expressing  any  feeling  of  surprise,  much  I 
less  any  sentiment   of  admiration;   but*-/ 
I  am  confident  that  under  a  masque  of|| 
ironical  self-complacency  the  old  Gascon  = 
would    find   it   difficult    to    repress    his;;; 
astonishment,  and  still  more  difficult  toj^p 
adjust  his  mind  to  evident  and  impres-pv 
sive  changes.     I  have  ventured  at  times  ^^; 
to  imagine  myself  in  the   company  ofijg. 
another  more  remote  and  finely  organ 
ised  spirit  of   the  past,  and  pictured  to'^| 
myself  the  keen,  dispassionate  criticism  ok  ^ 
Pericles  on  the  things  of  modern  habit 
and    creation;    I   have    listened   to  hisg 
luminous  interpretations  of  the  changed/ >s 


iditions  which  he  saw  about  him;  I 
ive  noted  his  unconcern  toward  the 
lerely  material  advances  of  society,  his 
|pP|penetrative   insight    into   its   intellectual 
K'and  moral   developments,     A  mind  so 
^capacious  and  open,  a  nature  so  trained 
.and    poised,    could    not    be    otherwise 
than  self-contained    and   calm   even   in 
;:|the  presence  of    changes   so  vast    and 
manifold  as  those   which    have    trans 
formed    society   since  the   days   of    the 
^reat  Athenian;  but  even  he  could  not 
be   quite   unmoved  if    brought    face   to 
face  with  a   life   so   unlike    that    with 
Ifwhich    he    had    been    familiar;     there 
|jmust    come,    even    to    one    who    feels 
Jthe  mastery  of  the  soul  over   all   con- 
Ifditions,  a  certain  sense  of  wonder  and 
iwe. 

It  was  with  some  such  feeling  that 
'Rosalind  and  I  found  ourselves  in  the 
IForest  of  Arden.  The  journey  was  so 
[soon  accomplished  that  we  had  no  time 


16 


,  •  ^  •<.  • 


to  accustom  ourselves  to  the  changes 
between  the  country  we  had  left  and 
that  to  which  we  had  come*  We  had 
always  fancied  that  the  road  would  be 
long  and  hard,  and  that  we  should 
arrive  worn  and  spent  with  the  fatigues 
of  travel  We  were  astonished  and  de 
lighted  when  we  suddenly  discovered 
that  we  were  within  the  boundaries  of 
the  Forest  long  before  we  had  begun 
to  think  of  the  end  of  our  journey*  We 
had  said  nothing  to  each  other  by  the 
way;  our  thoughts  were  so  busy  that 
we  had  no  time  for  speech.  There  were 
no  other  travellers;  everybody  seemed 
to  be  going  in  the  opposite  direction; 
and  we  were  left  to  undisturbed  medi 
tation.  The  route  to  the  Forest  is  one 
of  those  open  secrets  which  whosoever 
would  know  must  learn  for  himself;  it 
is  impossible  to  direct  those  who  do  not 
discover  for  themselves  how  to  make 
the  journey.  The  Forest  is  probably 


v,v: 


the  most  accessible  place  on  the  face 
of  the  earth,  but  it  is  so  rarely  visited 
that  one  may  go  half  a  lifetime  without 
meeting  a  person  who  has  been  there. 
I  have  never  been  able  to  explain  the 
fact  that  those  who  have  spent  some 
time  in  the  Forest,  as  well  as  those 
who  are  later  to  see  it,  seem  to  recog 
nise  each  other  by  instinct.  Rosalind 
and  I  happen  to  have  a  large  circle  of 
acquaintances,  and  it  has  been  our  good 
fortune  to  meet  and  recognise  many  who 
were  familiar  with  the  Forest,  and  who 
were  able  to  tell  us  much  about  its 
localities  and  charms.  It  is  not  gener 
ally  known,  and  it  is  probably  wise 
not  to  emphasise  the  fact,  that  the  for 
tunate  few  who  have  access  to  the 
Forest  form  a  kind  of  secret  fraternity; 
a  brotherhood  of  the  soul  which  is  secret 
8  because  those  alone  who  are  qualified  for 
£  membership  by  nature  can  understand 
either  its  language  or  its  aims.  It  is  a 


*--,,.     ;  '  .     <•- ;..--.;,  V -.--.-" 

very  strange  thing  that  the  dwellers  in 
the  Forest  never  make  the  least  attempt 
at  concealment,  but  that,  no  matter  how 
frank  and  explicit  their  statements  may 
be,  nobody  outside  the  brotherhood  ever 
understands  where  the  Forest  lies,  or 
what  one  finds  when  he  gets  there. 
One  may  write  what  he  chooses  about 
life  in  the  Forest,  and  only  those  whom 
Nature  has  selected  and  trained  will 
understand  what  he  discloses;  to  all 
others '  it  will  be  an  idle  tale  or  a  fairy 
story  for  the  entertainment  of  peo 
ple  who  have  no  serious  business  in 
hand. 

I  remember  well  the  first  time  I  ever 
understood  that  there  is  a  Forest  of 
Arden,  and  that  they  who  choose  may 
wander  through  its  arched  aisles  of 
shade  and  live  at  their  will  in  its  deep 
and  beautiful  solitude;  a  solitude  in 
which  nature  sits  like  a  friend  from 
whose  face  the  veil  has  been  with- 


»9 


drawn,  and  whose  strange  and  foreign 
utterance  has  been  exchanged  for  the 
most  familiar  speech.  Since  that  memo- 
rable  afternoon  under  the  apple  trees  I 
have  never  been  far  from  the  Forest, 
although  at  times  I  have  lost  sight  of 
the  line  which  its  foliage  makes  against 
the  horizon.  I  have  always  intended 
to  cross  that  line  some  day,  and  to  ex- 
plore  the  Forest  ;  perhaps  even  to  make 
a  home  for  myself  there.  But  one's 
dreams  must  often  wait  for  their  reali- 
sation,  and  so  it  has  come  to  pass  that 
I  have  gone  all  these  years  without 
personal  familiarity  with  these  beautiful 
scenes.  I  have  since  learned  that  one 
never  comes  to  the  Forest  until  he  is 
thoroughly  prepared  in  heart  and  mind, 
and  I  understand  now  that  I  could  not 
have  come  earlier  even  if  I  had  made 
the  attempt.  As  it  happened,  I  con 
cerned  myself  with  other  things,  and 
never  approached  very  near  the  Forest, 


.'Uran 


although  never  very  far  from  it.  I  was 
never  quite  happy  unless  I  caught  fre 
quent  glimpses  of  its  distant  boughs, 
and  I  searched  more  and  more  eagerly 
for  those  who  had  left  some  record  of 
their  journeys  to  the  Forest,  and  of 
their  life  within  its  magical  boundaries* 
I  discovered,  to  my  great  joy,  that  the 
libraries  were  full  of  books  which  had 
much  to  say  about  the  delights  of 
Arden:  its  enchanting  scenery;  the 
music  of  its  brooks;  the  sweet  and 
refreshing  repose  of  its  recesses;  the 
noble  company  that  frequent  it*  I  soon 
found  that  all  the  greater  poets  have 
been  there,  and  that  their  lines  had 
caught  the  magical  radiance  of  the  sky; 
and  many  of  the  prose  writers  showed 
the  same  familiarity  with  a  country  in 
which  they  evidently  found  whatever 
was  sweetest  and  best  in  life*  I  came 
to  know  at  last  those  whose  knowledge 
of  Arden  was  most  complete,  and  I  put 


in  a  place  by  themselves;  a  cor- 
in  the  study  to  which  Rosalind 
went  for  the  books  we  read  to 
gether.  I  would  gladly  give  a  list  of 
these  works  but  for  the  fact  I  have 
already  hinted  —  that  those  who  would 
understand  their  references  to  Arden 
will  come  to  know  them  without  aid 
from  me,  .and  that  those  who  would 
not  understand  could  find  nothing  in 
them  even  if  I  should  give  page  and 
paragraph.  It  was  a  great  surprise  to 
me,  when  I  first  began  to  speak  of  the 
Forest,  to  find  that  most  people  scouted 
the  very  idea  of  such  a  country;  many 
did  not  even  understand  what  I  meant. 
Many  a  time,  at  sunset,  when  the  light  | 
has  lain  soft  and  tender  on  the  distant 
Forest,  I  have  pointed  it  out,  only  to  be 
told  that  what  I  thought  was  the  Forest 
was  a  splendid  pile  of  clouds,  a  shining 
mass  of  mist.  I  came  to  understand  at 
last  that  Arden  exists  only  for  a  few, 


&S>5fMr 


5:^rr 


and  I  ceased  to  talk  about  it  save  to  |p 
?  those  who  shared  my  faith.     Gradually  | 

I  came  to  number   among   my  friends  Pl^/x^j 

many  who  were  in  the  habit  of  making  p  tfffj 
;?  frequent    journeys    to  the   Forest,   and  | 
5;  not  a  few  who  had   spent  the  greater  | 

part  of  their   lives   there.     I  remember         %^ 
Sthe  first    time  I   saw   Rosalind  I   saw  | 
I  the    light    of    the    Arden    sky    in   her  |^| 
|  eyes,   the   buoyancy   of  the  Arden  air  I 
^  in  her  step,  the  purity  and  freedom  of  ; 
3|the  Arden  life  in  her  nature.     We  built  ^ 
|  our   home  within   sight  of  the   Forest, 
||and   there   was   never  a   day  that   we  y     ^^ 
pf  did  not  talk  about  and  plan  our  long- 
jS|  delayed  journey  thither.  |K5 

J     "  After  all,"   said   Rosalind,   on  that  p 
J first  glorious  morning  in  Arden,  "as  I  ^ 
|  look   back  I  see  that  we  were  always  I 

on  the  way  here." 


m 


Well,  this  is  the  Forest  of  Arden 


a    certain  £!:>> 


8i§i 


The    first    sensation   that    comes    to 
one  who  finds   himself  at    last   within 
the  boundaries  of  the  Forest  of  Arden 
is  a  delicious  sense  of  freedom.     I  am 
not   sure  that   there    is  not 
sympathy   with   outlawry   in  that   first 
exhilarating    consciousness     of    having 
gotten   out   of  the   conventional   world, 
—  the   world    whose    chief    purpose    is 
that  all  men  shall  wear  the  same  coat, 
eat  the   same  dinner,   repeat   the   same 
polite   commonplaces,  and   be  forgotten 
at  last  under  the  same  epitaph.     Forests  H 
have  beeri  the  natural  refuge  of  outlaws  f| 
from  the  earliest  time,  and  among  thef 
most  respectable   persons  there  has  al 
ways   been   an   ill-concealed    liking  for 
Robin   Hood   and  the  whole   fraternity 
of  the  men  of  the  bow.     Truth  is  above 
all  things  characteristic  of  the  dwellers  I 
in  Arden,  and  it  must  be  frankly  con 
fessed  at  the   beginning,  therefore,  that 
the   Forest    is    given   over    entirely   to 


outlaws;  those  who  have  committed 
some  grave  offence  against  the  world 
of  conventions,  or  who  have  voluntarily 
gone  into  exile  out  of  sheer  liking  for  a 
freer  life.  These  persons  are  not  vulgar 
law-breakers ;  they  have  neither  blood 
on  their  hands  nor  ill-gotten  gains  in 
their  pockets  ;  they  are,  on  the  contrary, 
people  of  uncommonly  honest  bearing 
and  frank  speech.  Their  offences  evi 
dently  impose  small  burden  on  their 
conscience,  and  they  have  the  air  of 
those  who  have  never  known  what  it 
is  to  have  the  Furies  on  one's  track. 
Rosalind  was  struck  with  the  charming 
naturalness  and  gaiety  of  every  one 
we  met  in  our  first  ramble  on  that 
delicious  and  never-to-be-forgotten  morn 
ing  when  we  arrived  in  Arden.  There 
was  neither  assumption  nor  diffidence: 

[there  was   rather   an  entire  absence  erf 

any  kind   of  self-consciousness.      Rosa- 
]  lind  had  fancied  that  we  might  be  quite 


- 


;; 

I 


?  alone  for  a  time,  and  we  had  expected 
"  to  have  a  few  days  to  ourselves.  We 
had  even  planned  in  our  romantic  mo 
ments —  and  there  is  always  a  good 
deal  of  romance  among  the  dwellers  in 
Arden  —  a  continuation  of  our  wedding 
journey  during  the  first  week. 

"It  will  be  so  much  more  delightful 
than  before/'  suggested  Rosalind,  "  be 
cause  nobody  will  stare  at  us,  and  we 
shall  have  the  whole  world  to  our 
selves."  In  that  last  phrase  I  recog 
nised  the  ideal  wedding  journey,  and 
was  not  at  all  dismayed  at  the  prospect 
of  having  no  society  but  Rosalind's  for 
a  time.  But  all  such  anticipations  were 
dispelled  in  an  hour.  It  was  not  that 
we  met  many  people,  —  it  is  one  cf  the 
delights  of  the  Forest  that  one  finds 
society  enough  to  take  away  the  sense 
of  isolation,  but  not  enough  to  destroy 
the  sweetness  of  solitude ;  it  was  rather 
that  the  few  we  met  made  us  feel  at 


,  f 

- 
•   I 


IV  V: 


- 


once    that    we   had   equal    claim   with 
themselves    on    the    hospitality    of    the  | 
place.     The  Forest  was    not  only  free 
to  every   comer,  but   it  evidently  gave 
peculiar    pleasure    to    those   who  were 
living  in  it  to  convey  a  sense  of  owner- 
ship  to  those   who   were    arriving  for 
the  first  time,      Rosalind   declared  that 
she  felt    as  much   at    home   as   if    she  fjj 
had    been   born   there;  and   she   added  * 
that   she   was    glad    she    had    brought  | 
only   the    dress    she   wore.      I  was   a  I 
little    puzzled    by  the    last  remark;    it  I 
seemed    not     entirely    logical*      But    I 
saw  presently  that  she  was  expressing  | 
the  fellowship  of  the  place,  which  for-  if 
bade  that  one  should  possess  anything 
that  was   not   in  use,   and   that,  there 
fore,  was  not  adding  constantly  to  the 
common  stock  of  pleasure.     Concerning 
the   feeling    of    having    been    born    in 
Arden,  I   became   convinced   later  that 
there   was   good    reason   for    believing 


T 


that  everybody  who  loved  the  place 
had  been  born  there,  and  that  this  fact 
explained  the  home  feeling  which  came 
to  one  the  instant  he  set  foot  within 
the  Forest*  It  is,  in  fact,  the  only  place 
I  have  known  which  seemed  to  belong 
to  me  and  to  everybody  else  at  the 
same  time;  in  which  I  felt  no  alien 
influence*  In  our  own  home  I  had 
something  of  the  same  feeling,  but 
when  I  looked  from  a  window  or  set 
foot  from  a  door  I  was  instantly  op 
pressed  with  a  sense  of  foreign  owner 
ship*  In  the  great  world  how  little 
could  I  call  my  own!  Only  a  few 
feet  of  soil  out  of  the  measureless  land 
scape;  only  a  few  trees  and  flowers 
out  of  all  that  boundless  foliage!  I 
seemed  driven  out  of  the  heritage  to 
which  I  was  born;  cheated  out  of  my 
birthright  in  the  beauty  of  the  field  and 
the  mystery  of  the  Forest ;  put  off  with 
the  beggarly  portion  of  a  younger  son 

31 


when  I  ought  to  have  fallen  heir  to 
the  kingdom.  My  chief  joy  was  that 
from  the  little  space  I  called  my  own 
I  could  see  the  whole  heavens ;  no 
man  could  rob  me  of  that  splendid 
vision* 

In  Arden,  however,  the  question  of 
ownership  never  comes  into  one's 
thoughts;  that  the  Forest  belongs  to 
you  gives  you  a  deep  joy,  but  there 
is  a  deeper  joy  in  the  consciousness 
that  it  belongs  to  everybody  else* 

The  sense  of  freedom,  which  comes 
as  strongly  to  one  in  Arden  as  the 
smell  of  the  sea  to  one  who  has  made 
a  long  journey  from  the  inland,  hints, 
I  suppose,  at  the  offence  which  makes 
the  dwellers  within  its  boundaries  out 
laws*  For  one  reason  or  another,  they 
have  all  revolted  against  the  rule  of 
the  world,  and  the  world  has  cast 
them  out*  They  have  offended  smug 
respectability,  with  its  passionless  de- 

mm 


'I    IHllllli.... 


Wz, 

,r  ••£**'>+  v^iJ'tfc-.  -«< 


votion  to  deportment ;    they  have  out-  : 
raged  conventional  usage,  that  carefully  • 
devised  system  by  which  small  natures  \ 
to  bring   great   ones   down  to 
their  own  dimensions ;  they  have  scan-  I 
dalised  the  orthodoxy  which,  like  Mem-  ; 
non,  has  lost  the  music  of  its  morning, 
and  marvels  that  the  world  no  longer 
listens ;    they    have    derided    venerable 
prejudices,  —  those  ugly  relics  by  which 
some  men  keep  in  remembrance  their 
barbarous  ancestry;    they  have  refused 
to  follow  flags  whose  battles  were  won 
or  lost  ages  ago;    they  have  scorned  to 
compromise  with  untruth,   to  go  with 
the  crowd,  to  acquiesce  in  evil  "  for  the 
good  of  the  cause,"  to  speak  when  they 
ought  to  keep  silent,  and  to  keep  silent 
when  they  ought  to  speak*     Truly  the 
lists  of  sins  charged  to  the  account  of 
Arden  is  a  long  one,  and  were  it   not 
that  the  memory  of  the  world,  concerned 
chiefly  with  the  things   that   make  for 


its  comfort,  is  a  short  one,  it  would  go 
ill  with  the  lovers  of  the  Forest*     More 
than  once  it   has   happened   that   some 
offender  has  suffered  so  long  a  banish 
ment    that    he    has     taken    permanent 
refuge   in  Arden,  and   proved  his   citi 
zenship  there  by   some   act  worthy   of 
its  glorious    privileges.      In  the   Forest  | 
one    comes    constantly    upon    traces  of  I 
those  who,  like  Dante  and  Milton,  have  £• 
found  there  a   refuge  from   the  Philis-  | 
tinism  of  a  world  that   often   hates  its  -| 
children  in    exact    proportion    to    their  I 
ability  to  give  it  light*     For  the  most  £ 
part,  however,  the  outlaws  who  frequent  & 
the  Forest  suffer  no  longer  banishment  f /, 
than  that  which  they  impose  on  them-  J* 
selves.     They   come   and    go    at    their  I 
own  sweet   will ;    and  their   coming,   I  k 
suspect,   is  generally   a   matter  of  their  |~ 
own   choosing.     The  world  still   loves  ^ 
darkness  more  than  light ;  but  it  rarely  £•£. 
nowadays  falls  upon  the  lantern-bearer  | 


and  beats  the  life  out  of  him,  as  in 
.  "  the  good  old  times."  The  world  has 
>  grown  more  decent  and  polite,  Chough  jj|8| 

still  at  heart  no  doubt  the  bad  old  world  |^ 

which  stoned  the    prophets.     It   sneers  &; 
.-  where   it   once    stoned ;    it   rejects    and  £ 
.  scorns  where  it  once  beat  and  burned*         - 
;:  And   so  Arden   has   become   a   refuge,  ;•: 
|  not    so    much    from    persecution     and  • 

hatred  as  from  ignorance,  indifference,  If 
;  and  the  small  wounds  of  small  minds  | 
|  bent  upon  stinging  that  which  they  | 

cannot  destroy. 


IV 


Fleet  the  time  carelessly,  as  they  did  in  the 
golden  world 


Rosalind  and  I  have  always  been 
planning  to  do  a  great  many  pleasant 
things  when  we  had  more  time.  Dur 
ing  the  busy  days  when  we  barely 
found  opportunity  to  speak  to  each 
other  we  were  always  thinking  of  the 
better  days  when  we  should  be  able  to 
sit  hours  together  with  no  knock  at  the 
door  and  no  imperative  summons  from 
the  kitchen.  Some  man  of  sufficient 
eminence  to  give  his  words  currency 
ought  to  define  life  as  a  series  of  inter 
ruptions.  [There  are  a  good  many 
valuable  and  inspiring  things  which 
can  only  be  done  when  one  is  in  the 
mood,  and  to  secure  a  mood  is  not 
always  an  easy  matter;]  there  are 
moods  which  are  as  coy  as  the  most 
high-spirited  woman,  and  must  be 
wooed  with  as  much  patience  and 
tact:  and  when  the  illusive  prize  is 
gained,  one  holds  it  by  the  frailest  ten 
ure.  An  interruption  diverts  the  cur- 


*  -" 


'.^M 


r:^tM:m-:^K^^^^w^^^ 


rent,  cuts  the  golden  thread,  breaks 
the  exquisite  harmony.  I  have  often 
thought  that  Dante  was  far  less  unfor 
tunate  than  the  world  has  judged  him 
to  be.  If  he  had  been  courted  and 
crowned  instead  of  rejected  and  exiled, 
it  might  have  been  that  his  genius 
would  have  missed  the  conditions  which 
gave  it  immortal  utterance.  Left  to  him 
self,  he  had  only  his  own  nature  to 
reckon  with;  the  world  passed  him  by, 
and  left  him  to  the  companionship  of  his 
sublime  and  awful  dreams.  To  be  left 
alone  with  one's  self  is  often  the  highest 
good  fortune.  (Moreover,  I  detest  being 
hurriedj  it  seems  to  me  the  most  offen 
sive  way  in  which  we  are  reminded 
of  our  mortality ;  there  is  time  enough 
if  we  know  how  to  use  it.  People 
who,  like  Goethe,  never  rest  and  never 
haste,  complete  their  work  and  escape 
the  friction  of  it. 

One   of    the   most    delightful    things 

•^ii(ilitfffl)»gi3l^i!P^,(S' 


about  life  in  Arden  is  the  absence  of 
any  sense  of  haste;  life  is  a  matter  of 
being  rather  than  of  doing,  and  on^ 
shares  the  tranquillity  of  the  great  trees 
that  silently  expand  year  by  yearl  The 
fever  and  restlessness  are  gone,  the 
long  strain  of  nerve  and  will  relaxed  ; 
a  delicious  feeling  of  having  strength 
and  time  enough  to  live  one's  life  and 
do  one's  work  fills  one  with  a  deep  and 
enduring  sense  of  repose* 

Rosalind,  who  had  been  busy  about 
so  many  things  that  I  sometimes  almost 
lost  sight  of  her  for  days  together,  found 
time  to  take  long  walks  with  me,  to 
watch  the  birds  and  the  clouds,  and 
talk  by  the  hour  about  all  manner  of 
pleasant  trifles.  I  came  to  feel,  after  a 
time,  that  just  what  I  anticipated  would 
happen  in  Arden  had  happened.  I  was 
fast  becoming  acquainted  with  her.  We 
spent  days  together  in  the  most  delight- 
ful  half-vocal  and  half-silent  fellowship: 


KSKn 


leaving  everything  to  the  mood  of  the 
hour  and  the  place*  Our  walks  took  us 
sometimes  into  lovely  recesses,  where 
mutual  confidences  seemed  as  natural 
as  the  air;  sometimes  into  solitudes 
where  talk  seemed  an  impertinence, 
and  we  were  silent  under  the  spell  of 
rustling  leaves  and  thrilling  melodies 
coming  from  we  knew  not  what  hid 
den  minstrelsy.  But  whether  silent  or 
speaking,  we  were  fast  coming  to  know 
each  other.  I  saw  many  traits  in  her, 
many  characteristic  habits  and  move 
ments  which  I  had  never  noted  before ; 
and  I  was  conscious  that  she  was  mak 
ing  similar  discoveries  in  me.  These 
mutual  revelations  absorbed  us  dur 
ing  our  first  days  in  the  Forest; 
and  f  they  confirmed  the  impression 
which  I  brought  with  me  that  half 
the  charm  of  people  is  lost  under  the 
pressure  of  work  and  the  irritation 
of  haste|  We  rarely  know  our  best 


friends  on  their  best  side;  our  vision 
of  their  noblest  selves  is  constantly 
obscured  by  the  mists  of  preoccupation 
and  weariness* 

In  Arden,  life  is  pitched  on  the  natural 
key;  nobody  is  ever  hurried;  nobody 
is  ever  interrupted;  nobody  carries  his 
work  like  a  pack  on  his  back  instead 
of  leaving  it  behind  him  as  the  sun 
leaves  the  earth  when  the  day  is  over 
and  the  calm  stars  shine  in  the  un 
broken  silence  of  the  sky.  Rosalind 
and  I  were  entirely  conscious  of  the 
transformation  going  on  within  us,  and 
were  not  slow  to  submit  ourselves  to 
its  beneficent  influence.  We  felt  that 
Arden  would  not  put  all  its  resources 
into  our  hand  until  we  had  shaken 
off  the  dust  and  parted  from  the  fret 
of  the  world  we  had  left  behind. 

In  those  first  inspiring  days  we  went 
oftenest  to  the  heart  of  the  pines,  where 
the  moss  grew  so  deep  that  our  move- 


\T' 


BvK^Tyi 

^^BMll    8@fc* 


ments  were  noiseless ;  where 
in  subdued  and  gentle  tones  among  the 
closely  clustered  trees;  and  where  no 
sound  ever  reached  us  save  the  organ  ? 
music  of  the  great  boughs  when  the  I 
wind  evoked  their  sublime  harmonies.  f 
Many  a  time,  as  we  have  sat  silent 
while  the  tones  of  that  majestic  sym 
phony  rose  and  fell  about  us,  we  seemed 
to  become  a  part  of  the  scene  itself;  we 
felt  the  unfathomed  depth  of  a  music 
produced  by  no  conscious  thought, 
wrought  out  by  no  conscious  toil,  but 
akin,  in  its  spontaneity  and  natural 
ness,  with  the  fragrance  of  the  flower. 
And  with  these  thrilling  notes  there 
came  to  us  the  thought  of  the  calm, 
reposeful,  irresistible  growth  of  Nature; 
never  hasting,  never  at  rest;  the  silent 
spreading  of  the  tree,  the  steady  burn 
ing  of  the  star,  the  noiseless  flow  of  the 
river!  Was  not  this  sublime  uncon 
sciousness  of  time,  this  glorious  appro- 

44 

••••"•   •:'••:    • 


priation  of  eternity,  something  we  had  I 
missed  all  our  lives,  and,  in  missing  '? 
it,  had  lost  our  birthright  of  quiet  hours,  I 
calm  thought,  sweet  fellowship,  ripen 
ing  character  ?  The  fever  and  tumult  I 
of  the  world  we  had  left  were  discords  • 
in  a  strain  that  had  never  yielded  its  | 
music  before. 

For  nature  beats  in  perfect  tune, 
And  rounds  with  rhyme  her  every  rune, 
Whether  she  work  in  land  or  sea, 
Or  hide  underground  her  alchemy. 
Thou  canst  not  wave  thy  staff  in  air, 

Or  dip  thy  paddle  in  the  lake, 
But  it  carves  the  bow  of  beauty  there, 

And   the  ripples  in  rhymes  the  oars  for-  §: 
sake. 

After  one  of  these  long,  delicious 
days  in  the  heart  of  the  pines,  Rosalind 
slipped  her  hand  in  mine  as  we  walked 
slowly  homeward. 

"This  is  the  first  day  of  my  life/' 
she  said. 


, 


And  this  our  life,  exempt  from  public  haunt, 
Finds  tongues  in  trees,  books  in  the  running  brooks, 
Sermons  in  stones,  and  good  in  everything 


.", 


SHK&i 


It  was  one  of  those  entrancing  morn 
ings  when  the  earth  seems  to  have 
been  made  over  under  cover  of  night, 
and  one  drinks  the  first  draft  of  a  new 
experience  when  he  sees  it  by  the  light 
of  a  new  day.  Such  mornings  are  not 
uncommon  in  Arden,  where  the  nightly 
dews  work  a  perpetual  miracle  of  fresh 
ness*  On  this  particular  morning  we 
had  strayed  long  and  far,  the  silence 
and  solitude  of  the  woods  luring  us 
hour  after  hour  with  unspoken  promises 
to  the  imagination*  We  had  come  at 
length  to  a  place  so  secluded,  so  re 
mote  from  stir  and  sound,  that  one 
might  dream  there  of  the  sacredness  of 
ancient  oracles  and  the  revels  of  ancient 
gods. 

Rosalind  had  gathered  wild  flowers 
along  the  way,  and  sat  at  the  base  of 
a  great  tree  intently  disentangling  her 
treasures.  With  that  figure  before  me, 
I  thought  of  nearer  and  more  sacred 

49 


things  than  the  old  woodland  gods  that 
might  have  strayed  that  way  centuries 
ago;  I  had  no  need  to  recall  the  van 
ished  times  and  faiths  to  interpret  the 
spirit  of  an  hour  so  far  from  the  com 
monplaces  of  human  speech,  so  free 
from  the  passing  moods  of  human  life. 
The  sweet  unconsciousness  of  that  face, 
bent  over  the  mass  of  wild  flowers,  and 
akin  to  them  in  its  unspoiled  loveliness, 
was  to  that  hour  and  place  like  the 
illuminated  capital  in  the  old  missal;  a 
ray  of  colour  which  unlocked  the  dark 
mystery  of  the  text.  When  one  can 
see  the  loveliness  of  a  wild  flower, 
and  feel  the  absorbing  charm  of  its 
sentiment,  one  is  not  far  from  the 
kingdom  of  Nature. 

As  these  fancies  chased  one  another 
across  my  mind,  lying  there  at  full 
length  on  the  moss,  I,  too,  seemed  to 
lose  all  consciousness  that  I  had  ever 
touched  life  at  any  point  than  this,  or 


TJNP7 


that  any  other  hour  had  ever  pressed 
its  cup  of  experience  to  my  lips*  The 
great  world  of  which  I  was  once  part 
disappeared  out  of  memory  like  a  mist 
that  recedes  into  a  faint  cloud  and  lies 
faint  and  far  on  the  boundaries  of  the 
day;  my  own  personal  life,  to  which 
I  had  been  bound  by  such  a  multitude 
of  gossamer  threads  that  when  I  tried 
to  unloose  one  I  seemed  to  weave  a 
hundred  in  its  place,  seemed  to  sink 
below  the  surface  of  consciousness.  I 
ceased  to  think,  to  feel ;  I  was  conscious 
only  of  the  vast  and  glorious  world  of 
tree  and  sky  which  surrounded  me.  I 
felt  a  thrill  of  wonder  that  I  should  be 
so  placed*  I  had  often  lain  thus  under 
other  trees,  but  never  in  such  a  mood 
as  this.  It  was  as  if  I  had  detached 
myself  from  the  hitherto  unbroken  cur 
rent  of  my  personal  life,  and  by  some 
miracle  of  that  marvellous  place  become 
part  of  the  inarticulate  life  of  Nature. 


Clouds  and  trees,  dim  vistas  of  shadow 
and  flower-starred  space  of  sunlight, 
were  no  longer  alien  to  me;  I  was 
akin  with  the  vast  and  silent  movement 
of  things  which  encompassed  me.  No 
new  sound  came  to  me,  no  new  sight 
broke  on  my  vision;  but  I  heard  with 
ears,  and  I  saw  with  eyes,  to  which  all 
other  sounds  and  sights  had  ceased  to 
be.  I  cannot  translate  into  words  the 
mystery  and  the  thrill  of  that  hour 
when,  for  the  first  time,  I  gave  myself 
wholly  into  the  keeping  of  Nature,  and 
she  received  me  as  her  child.  What  I 
felt,  what  I  saw  and  heard,  belong  only 
to  that  place;  outside  the  Forest  of 
Arden  they  are  incomprehensible.  It  is 
enough  to  say  that  I  had  parted  with 
all  my  limitations,  and  freed  myself  from 
all  my  bonds  of  habit  and  ignorance  £$ 
and  prejudice ;  I  was  no  longer  worn  $ 
and  spent  with  work  and  emotion  and  j. 
impression ;  I  was  no  longer  prisoned  | 


• 


within  the  iron  bars  of  my  own  person-  v 
ality.  I  was  as  free  as  the  bird ;  I  was  ! 
as  little  bound  to  the  past  as  the  cloud 
that  an  hour  ago  was  breathed  out  of 
the  heart  of  the  sea;  I  was  as  joyous,  ; 
as  unconscioifs,  as  wholly  given  to  the 
rapture  of  the  hour  as  if  I  had  come 
into  a  world  where  freedom  and  joy 
were  an  inalienable  and  universal  pos 
session.  I  did  not  speculate  about  the 
great  fleecy  clouds  that  moved  like 
galleons  in  the  ethereal  sea  above  me; 
I  simply  felt  their  celestial  beauty,  the 
radiancy  of  their  unchecked  movement, 
the  freedom  and  splendour  of  the  inex- 
haustible  play  of  life  of  which  they  were 
part.  I  asked  no  questions  of  myself 
about  the  great  trees  that  wove  the 
garments  of  the  magical  forest  about 
me ;  I  felt  the  stir  of  their  ancient  life, 
rooted  in  the  centuries  that  had  left  no 
record  in  that  place  save  the  added  girth 
and  the  discarded  leaf ;  I  had  no  thought 

53 


about  the  bird  whose  note  thrilled  the 
forest  save  the  rapture  of  pouring  out 
without  measure  or  thought  the  joy 
that  was  in  me;  I  felt  the  vast  irresis 
tible  movement  of  life  rolling,  wave 
after  wave,  out  of  the  unseen  seas  be 
yond,  obliterating  the  faint  divisions  by 
which,  in  this  working  world,  we  count 
the  days  of  our  toil,  and  making  all  the 
ages  one  unbroken  growth;  I  felt  the 
measureless  calm,  the  sublime  repose,  of 
that  uninterrupted  expansion  of  form 
and  beauty,  from  flower  to  star  and 
from  bird  to  cloud;  I  felt  the  mighty 
impulse  of  that  force  which  lights  the 
sun  in  its  track  and  sets  the  stars 
to  mark  the  boundaries  of  its  way* 
Unbroken  repose,  unlimited  growth, 
inexhaustible  life,  measureless  force,  un 
searchable  beauty  —  who  shall  feel  these 
things  and  not  know  that  there  are  no 
words  for  them!  And  yet  in  Arden 
they  are  part  of  every  man's  life! 

54 


H        II 


And  all  the  time  Rosalind  sat  weav 
ing  her  wild  flowers  into  a  loose  wreath,  8, 

44 1  must    not    take    them  from  this  J 
place,"   she    said,  as   she   bound    them  ! 
about  the  venerable  tree,  as  one  would 
bind   the  fancy   of  the  hour    to    some 
eternal  truth. 

"Yesterday,"  she  added,  as  she  sat 
down  again  and  shook  the  stray  leaves 
and  petals  from  her  lap  —  "yesterday 
was  the  first  day  of  my  life :  to-day  is 
the  second*" 

It  is  one  of  the  delights  of  Arden 
that  one  does  not  need  to  put  his  whole 
thought  into  words  there ;  half  the  need 
of  language  vanishes  when  we  say  only 
what  we  mean,  and  what  we  say  is 
heard  with  sympathy  and  intelligence. 
Rosalind  and  I  were  thinking  the  same 
thought.  Yesterday  we  had  discovered 
that  an  open  mind,  freedom  from  work 
and  care  and  turmoil,  make  it  possible 
for  people  to  be  their  true  selves  and  tc 


know    each    other.      To-day    we    had 
discovered  that   nature    reveals    herself 
only  to   the   open  mind  and  heart;  to 
all  others  she  is  deaf  and  dumb.     The 
worldling  who  seeks  her  never  sees  so  i 
much  as  the  hem  of  her  garment;  the 
egotist,  the  self-engrossed  man,  searches  t 
in  vain  for  her  counsel  and  consolation ;  f 
the   over-anxious,  fretful  soul  finds  her 
i  indifferent    and    incommunicable*      We 
!;  may  seek  her  far  and  wide,  with  minds  % 
/'  intent  upon  other  things,  and  she  will  -| 
forever  elude  us ;    but  on  the  morning  | 
we  open  our  windows  with  a  free  mind, 
she  is  there  to  break  for  us  the  seal  of 
her  treasures,  and  to  pour  out  the  per- 
p  fume  of   her   flowers.     She  is  cold,  re-  ; 
/  mote,  inaccessible  only   so  long  as  we 
<[  close  the  doors  of  our  hearts  and  minds 
to   her.      With  the  drudges  and  slaves 
of  mere   getting  and    saving    she    has|£ 
nothing    in    common;    but   with  those 

who   hold  their   souls   above  the   price 

56 


..-:    :;  -,    .....    .  .  • .... . 


•mm* 


of  the  world  and  the  bribe  of  success 
she    loves    to    share    her    repose,    her  f: 
strength,   and    her    beauty.     In    Arden 
Rosalind  and  I   cared  as  little  for  the  ^ 
world  we    had    left    as   children  intent  ^ 
upon   daisies   care  for  the   dust   of  the  |- 
road  out  of  which  they  have  come  into  5 
the  wide  meadows. 


57 


VI 


Here  feel  we  but  the  penalty  of  Adam, 
The  season's  difference,  as  the  icy  fang 
And  churlish  chiding  of  the  winter  wind, 
Which,  when  it  bites  and  blows  upon  my  body, 
Even  till  I  shrink  with  cold,  I  smile  and  say, 
This  is  no  flattery:  these  are  counsellors 
That  feelingly  persuade  me  what  I  am 


If  the  ideal  conditions  of  life,  of  which 
most  of  us  dream,  could  be  realised,  the 
result  would  be  a  padded  and  luxurious 
existence,  well-housed,  well-fed,  well- 
dressed,  with  all  the  winds  of  heaven 
tempered  to  indolence  and  cowardice. 
We  are  saved  from  absolute  shame  by 
the  consciousness  that  if  such  a  life 
were  possible  we  should  speedily  revolt 
against  the  comforts  that  flattered  the 
body  while  they  ignored  the  soul*  In 
Arden  there  is  no  such  compromise 
with  our  immoral  desires  to  get  results 
without  work,  to  buy  without  paying 
for  what  we  receive.  Nature  keeps 
no  running  accounts  and  suffers  no 
man  to  get  in  her  debt ;  she  deals  with 
us  on  the  principles  of  immutable  right 
eousness;  she  treats  us  as  her  equals, 
and  demands  from  us  an  equivalent  for 
every  gift  or  grace  of  sight  or  sound 
she  bestows.  She  rejects  contemptu 
ously  the  advances  of  the  weaklings 


p^ff^agp 
1  «!.*;» 


u 
IU^S*«*^-,VT 

h^^;j»iorai^'i\iru^^ 


who  aspire  to  become  her  beneficiaries 
without  having  made  good  their  claim 
by  some  service  or  self-denial;  she  re 
wards  those  only  who,  like  herself,  find 
music  in  the  tempest  as  well  as  in  the 
summer  wind;  joy  in  arduous  service 
as  well  as  in  careless  ease.  A  world 
in  which  there  were  no  labours  to  be 
f$  accomplished,  no  burdens  to  be  borne, 
no  storms  to  be  endured,  would  be  a 
world  without  true  joy,  honest  pleasure, 
or  noble  aspiration.  It  would  be  a 
fool's  paradise. 

The  Forest  of  Arden  is  not  without 
its  changes  of  weather  and  season. 
Rosalind  and  I  had  fancied  that  it  was 
always  summer  there,  and  that  sunlight 
reigned  from  year's  end  to  year's  end; 
if  we  had  been  told  that  storms  some 
times  overshadowed  it,  and  that  the  icy 
fang  of  winter  is  felt  there,  we  should 
have  doubted  the  report.  We  had  a 
good  deal  to  learn  when  we  first  went 


sww 


62 


•I  to  Arden ;  in  fact,  we  still  have  a  grea 
deal  to  learn  about  this  wonderful  coun 
try,  in  which  so  many  of  the  ideals  anc 
standards   with  which    we  were    once 
'••:!  familiar   are  reversed.     It  is  one  of  the 
I  blessed  results   of   living  in  the  Forest 
I  that  one  is  more  and  more   conscious 
that  he  does  not  know,  and  more  and 
more   eager    to    learn.     There    are   no 
shams   of   any   sort   in   Arden,  and  all 
pride  in  concealing  one's  ignorance  dis 
appears  ;   one's   chief   concern   is  to   be 
I  known  precisely  as  he  is.     We  were  a 
I  little  sensitive   at  first,  a  little  disposed 
jj|  to  be   cautious   about  asking   questions 
I  that   might  reveal  our   ignorance ;    but  \ 
we   speedily   lost    the   false   shame  we 
had    brought    with    us    from    a   world  '• 
where  men  study  to  conceal,  as  a  means 
of  protecting,  the  things  that  are  most 
precious  to  them.     When    we  learned 
that   in    the  Forest    nobody   vulgarises 

one's  affairs    by  making    them    matter 

63 


4 


of  common  talk,  that  all  the  meannesses 
of  slander  and  gossip  and  misinterpreta 
tion  are  unknown,  and  that  charity, 
courtesy,  and  honour  are  the  unfailing 
law  of  intercourse,  we  threw  down  our 
reserves  and  experienced  the  refreshing 
freedom  and  sympathy  of  full  knowledge 
between  man  and  man* 

After  a  long  succession  of  golden  days 
we  awoke  one  morning  to  the  familiar 
sound  of  rain  on  the  roof;  there  was 
no  mistake  about  it;  it  was  raining  in 
Arden!  Rosalind  was  so  incredulous 
that  I  could  see  she  doubted  if  she 
were  awake;  and  when  she  had  satis 
fied  herself  of  that  fact  she  began  to 
ask  herself  whether  we  had  been  really 
in  the  Forest  at  all;  whether  we  had 
not  been  dreaming  in  a  kind  of  double 
consciousness,  and  had  now  come  to 
the  awakening  which  should  rob  us  of 
this  golden  memory*  At  last  we  recog 
nised  the  fact  that  we  were  still 


in 


Arden,  and  that  it  was  raining.  It 
was  a  melancholy  awakening,  and  we 
were  silent  and  depressed  at  breakfast; 
for  the  first  time  no  birds  sang,  and 
no  sunlight  flickered  through  the  leaves 
and  brought  the  day  smiling  to  our 
very  door.  The  rain  fell  steadily,  and 
when  the  wind  swept  through  the  trees 
a  sound  like  a  sob  went  up  from  the 
Forest.  After  breakfast,  for  lack  of 
active  occupation,  we  lighted  a  few 
sticks  in  the  rough  fireplace,  and  found 
ourselves  gradually  drawn  into  the  cir 
cle  of  cheer  in  the  little  room.  The 
great  world  of  Nature  was  for  a  mo 
ment  out  of  doors,  and  there  seemed 
no  incongruity  in  talking  about  our 
own  experiences;  we  recalled  the  days 
in  the  world  we  had  left  behind;  we 
remembered  the  faces  of  our  neigh 
bours;  we  reminded  each  other  of  the 
incidents  of  our  journey;  we  retold,  in 
antiphonal  fashion,  the  story  of  our 


mm. 


:%•£ 


stay  in  the  Forest;  we  grew  eloquent 
as  we  described,  one  after  another,  the  1 
noble  persons  we  had  met  there;  our 
hearts  kindled  as  we  became  conscious  \- 
of  the  wonderful  enrichment  and  en-  fc 
largement  of  life  that  had  come  to  us ;  | 
|  and  as  the  varied  splendours  of  the  | 
days  and  scenes  of  Arden  returned  in  | 
our  memories,  the  spell  of  the  Forest  | 
came  upon  us,  and  the  mysterious  8 
cadence  of  the  rain,  falling  from  leaf  | 
to  leaf,  added  another  and  deeper  tone  jt 
to  the  harmony  of  our  Forest  life.  | 
The  gloom  had  gone;  we  had  all  the  I 
delight  of  a  new  experience  in  our 
hearts. 

"I  am  glad  it  rains,"  Rosalind  said, 
as  she  gave  the  fire  one  of  her  vigor 
ous   stirrings ;   "  I  am   glad  it  rains :   I  • 
don't    think  we   should    have    realised  I 
how  lovely  it  is  here  if  we  were  not 
shut   in  from    time   to   time.      One  is 
played   upon  by   so   many  impressions 

66 


or  THK 
•UNIVERSITY 


':    -"I     '' ''    tVf'-'"'^^ 

" 


that   one   must    escape    from    them   to 
understand     how     beautiful    they    are. 
And    then    I  'm    not    sure    that     even 
dark  days  and  rain  have  not  something 
which   sunshine   and   clear   skies  could 
not  give  us."     As  usual,  Rosalind  had;; 
spoken  my  thought  before  I  had  made 
it   quite    clear   to  myself;    I  began   to; 
feel  the  peculiar  delight  of  our  comfort 
in  the  heart  of  that  great  forest  when; 
the  storm  was  abroad.     The  monotone  * 
of  the  rain  became  rhythmic  with  some 
ancient,    primeval    melody,    which    the 
woods    sang   before  their   solitude   had 
been  invaded  by  the  eager  feet  of  men-  ^ 
always   searching  for  something  which!- 
they   do  not   possess.     I  felt   the   spell 
of  that  mighty  life  which  includes  the 
tempest   and  the  tumult  of  winds  and 
waves  among  the  myriad  voices  with 
which  it  speaks  its  marvellous    secret. 
Half    the    meaning    would    go    out    of 
Nature  if  no  storms   ever  dimmed  the 


6; 


,v 


light  of  stars  or  vexed  the  calm  of 
summer  seas.  It  is  the  infinite  variety 
of  Nature  which  fits  response  to  every 
I  need  and  mood,  renews  for  ever  the 
freshness  of  contact  with  her,  and 
holds  us  by  a  power  of  which  we 
•-  never  weary  because  we  never  exhaust 
its  resources. 

44  After  all,  Rosalind/'  I  said,  44  it  was 
not  the  storms  and  the  cold  which  made 
I  our  old  life  hard,  and  gave  Nature  an 
I  unfriendly    aspect ;    it    was    the    things 
f  in  our   human   experience  which  gave 
I  tempest  and  winter  a  meaning  not  their 
"  own.    In  a  world  in  which  all  hearts  beat 
true,  and  all  hands  were  helpful,  there 
would  be  no  real  hardship  in  Nature. 
It   is  the  loss,   sorrow,  weariness,  and 
disappointment  of  life  which  give  dark 
days  their  gloom,  and  cold  its  icy  edge, 
and  work  its  bitterness.     The  real  sor 
rows  of  life  are  not  of  Nature's  mak 
ing;    if  faithlessness  and  treachery  and 

68 


II  I 


every  sort  of  baseness  were  taken  out 
of  human  lives,  we  should  find  only  a 
healthy  and  vigorous  joy  in  such  hard 
ship  as  Nature  imposes  upon  us.  Upon 
men  of  sound,  sweet  life,  she  lays  only 
(  such  burdens  as  strength  delights  to 
carry,  because  in  so  doing  it  increases 
itself/' 

"That  is  true,"  said  Rosalind.  "The 
day  is  dark  only  when  the  mind  is 
dark;  all  weathers  are  pleasant  when 
the  heart  is  at  rest.  There  are  rainy 
days  in  Arden,  but  no  gloomy  ones; 
there  are  probably  cold  days,  but  none 
that  chill  the  soul." 

I  do  not  know  whether  it  was  Rosa 
lind's  smile  or  the  sudden  breaking  of 
the  sun  through  the  clouds  that  made 
the  room  brilliant;  probably  it  was 
both.  Rosalind  opened  the  lattice,  and 
I  saw  that  the  rain  had  ceased.  The 
drops  still  hung  on  every  leaf,  but  the 
clouds  were  breaking  into  great  shining 


masses,  and  the  blue  of  the  sky  was 
of  unsearchable  purity  and  depth*  The 
sun  poured  a  flood  of  light  into  .the 
heart  of  the  Forest,  and  suddenly  every 
tiny  drop,  that  a  moment  ago  might 
have  seemed  a  symbol  of  sorrow,  held 
the  radiant  sun  on  its  little  disk,  and 
every  sphere  shone  as  if  a  universe 
of  fairy  creation  had  been  suddenly 
breathed  into  being*  And  the  splendour 
touched  Rosalind  also* 


vn 


.  .  .  Pray  you,  if  you  know, 
Where  in  the  purlieus  of  this  forest  stands 
A  sheep-cote  fenced  about  with  olive  trees  ? 
»«•••» 

The  rank  of  osiers  by  the  murmuring  stream 
Left  on  your  right  hand,  brings  you  to  the  place. 
But  at  this  hour  the  house  doth  keep  itself 


Years  ago,  when  we  were  planning 
to  build  a  certain   modest   little   house,; 
Rosalind   and  I   found   endless    delight 
in  the    pleasures   of    anticipation.      By 
day  and  by  night  our  talk  came  backi 
to  the  home  we  were  to  make  for  our-] 
selves.     We   discussed   plan  after  planl 
and    found    none    quite  to  our    mind;^ 
we  examined   critically  the  houses  we; 
visited;  we  pored  over  books;  we  laid; 
the  experience  of  our  friends  under  con-; 
tribution;    and   when   at   last    we   had 
agreed  upon  certain  essentials,  we  called; 
an  architect  to  our  aid,  and  fondly  im 
agined  that  now  the  prelude  of  discus-; 
sion   and   delay  was  over,   we   should" 
find    unalloyed    delight    in    seeing    our 
imaginary  home  swiftly  take  form  and- 
become  a  thing  of  reality.     Alas  for  our 
hopes !     Expense  followed  fast  upon  ex 
pense   and   delay   upon   delay.      There 
were  endless  troubles  with  masons  and 
carpenters    and    plumbers;    and    when 

73 


. -:    . 
-  • 


our  dream  was  at  last  realised,  the 
charm  of  it  had  somehow  vanished; 
so  much  anxiety,  care,  and  vexation 
had  gone  into  the  process  of  building 
that  the  completed  structure  seemed  to 
be  a  monument  of  our  toil  rather  than 
a  refuge  from  the  world* 

After  this  sad  experience,  Rosalind 
and  I  contented  ourselves  with  build 
ing  castles  in  Spain;  and  so  great  has 
been  our  devotion  to  this  occupation 
that  we  are  already  joint  owners  of 
immense  possessions  in  that  remote  and 
beautiful  country*  It  is  a  singular  cir 
cumstance  that  the  dwellers  in  Arden, 
almost  without  exception,  are  holders 
of  estates  in  Spain*  I  have  never  seen 
any  of  these  splendid  properties;  in 
fact,  Rosalind  and  I  have  never  seen 
our  own  castles;  but  I  have  heard 
very  full  and  graphic  descriptions  of 
those  distant  seats*  In  imagination  I 
have  often  seen  the  great  piles  crown- 


ing  the  crests  of  wooded  hills,  whence 
noble  parks  and  vast  landscapes  lay 
spread  out ;  I  have  been  thrilled  by 
the  notes  of  the  hunting-horn  and  dis 
cerned  from  afar  the  cavalcade  of  beau 
tiful  women  and  gallant  men  winding 
its  way  to  the  gates  of  the  courtyard; 
I  have  seen  splendid  banners  afloat 
from  turret  and  casement ;  I  have  seen 
lights  flashing  at  night  and  heard  faint 
murmurs  of  music  and.  laughter.  Truly 
they  are  fortunate  who  own  castles  in 
Spain ! 

In  the  Forest  of  Arden  there  is  no 
such  brave  show  of  battlement  and 
rampart.  In  all  our  rambles  we  never 
came  upon  a  castle  or  palace;  in  fact, 
so  far  as  I  remember,  no  one  ever  spoke 
of  such  structures*  They  seem  to  have 
no  place  there.  Nor  is  it  hard  to  un 
derstand  this  singular  divergence  from 
the  ways  of  a  world  whose  habits  and 
standards  are  continually  reversed  in 


the  Forest,  In  castle  and  palace,  the 
wealth  and  splendour  of  life  —  every 
thing  that  gives  it  grace  and  beauty  to 
the  eye  —  are  treasured  within  massive 
walls  and  protected  from  the  common 
gaze  and  touch.  Every  great  park, 
with  its  reaches  of  inviting  sward  and 
its  groups  of  noble  trees,  seems  to  say 
to  those  who  pass  along  the  highway: 
"We  are  too  rare  for  your  using*" 
Every  stately  palace,  with  its  wonderful 
paintings  and  hangings,  its  sculpture 
and  furnishings,  locks  its  massive  gates 
against  the  great  world  without,  as  if 
that  which  it  guards  were  too  precious 
for  common  eyes.  In  Arden  no  one 
dreams  of  fencing  off  a  lovely  bit  of 
open  meadow  or  a  cluster  of  great  trees ; 
private  ownership  is  unknown  in  the 
Forest*  Those  who  dwell  there  are 
tenants  in  common  of  a  grander  estate 
than  was  ever  conquered  by  sword, 

purchased    by  gold,   or  bequeathed   by 

76 

:     •:  ••.:••>•." 


t 


the  laws  of  descent*     There  are  homes 
for  privacy,   for  the   sanctities   of    love 
and  friendship;    but   the  wealth  of  life 
is   common   to   all.     Instead  of  elegant  I 
houses,   and   a   meagre,   inferior    public^ 
life,  as  in  the  great  cities  of  the  world, 
there   are  modest   homes  and  a    noble 
common  life*     If  the  houses  in  our  cities  I 
were  simple  and  homelike  in  their  ap 
pointments,   and  all   their    treasures  of  | 
art   and  beauty  were  lodged  in   noble  I 
structures,   open    to   every    citizen,   the 
world  would   know  something  of    the  : 
habits  of  those  who  find  in  Arden  that  I 
satisfying  thought  of  life  which  is  de-  ; 
nied  them    among   men,  —  moderation,  I 
simplicity,  frugality  for  our  private  and  I 
personal  wants ;  splendid  profusion,  noble  I 
lavishness,  beautiful  luxury  for  that  com 
mon  life  which  now  languishes  because  I 
so  few  recognise  its  needs.     When  will 
i  the  world  learn  the  real  lesson  of  civili 
sation,  and,  for  the  cheap  and  ignoble 


aspect  of  modern  cities,  bring  back  the 
stateliness  of  Rome  and  the  beauty  of 
that  wonderful  city  whose  poetry  and 
art  were  but  the  voices  of  her  common 
life? 

The  murmuring  stream  at  our  door 
in  Arden  whispered  to  us  by  day  and 
I  by  night  the  sweet  secret  of  the  happi- 
|  ness  in  the  Forest,  where  no  man  strives 
I  to  outshine  his  neighbour  or  to  encumber 
|  the  free  and  joyous  play  of  his  life  with 
|  those  luxuries  which  are   only  another 
|  name  for  care*     Our  modest  little  home 
I  sheltered  but  did  not  enslave  us ;  it  held 
a  door  open  for  all  the  sweet  ministries 
of  affection,  but  it  was  barred  against 
anxiety  and   care;    birds    sang    at    its 
flower-embowered    windows,    and    the 
fragrance  of  the  beautiful  days  lingered 
there,  but  no  sound  from  the  world  of 
those  that  strive  and  struggle  ever  en 
tered.     We  were  joyous  as  children  in 

a    home   which    protected    our    bodies, 

78 


while  it  set  our  spirits  at  liberty ;  which 
gave  us  the  sweetness  of  rest  and  seclu 
sion,  while  it  left  us  free  to  use  the 


the 


and  to  drink 


ample  leisure 
deep  of  its  rich  and  healthful  life*  Vine- 
covered,  overshadowed  by  the  pine, 
with  the  olive  standing  in  friendly  neigh 
bourhood,  our  home  in  Arden  seemed 
at  the  same  time  part  of  the  Forest  and 
part  of  ourselves*  If  it  had  grown  out 
of  the  soil,  it  could  not  have  fitted  into 
the  landscape  with  less  suggestion  of 
artifice  and  construction ;  indeed,  Nature 
had  furnished  all  the  materials  and 
when  the  simple  structure  was  complete 
she  claimed  it  again  and  made  it  her 
own  with  endless  device  of  moss  and 
vine.  Without,  it  seemed  part  of  the 
Forest;  within,  it  seemed  the  visible 
history  of  our  life  there*  Friends  came 
and  went  through  the  unlatched  door; 
morning  broke  radiant  through  the  lat 
ticed  window;  the  seasons  enfolded  it 

79 


with  their  changing  life;  our  own  fel- 
lowship  of  mind  and  heart  made  it 
unspeakably  sacred.  Love  and  loyalty 
within;  noble  friends  at  the  hearthstone; 
soft  or  shining  heavens  above ;  mystery 
of  forest  and  music  of  stream  without : 
this  is  home  in  Arden, 


vm 


books  in  the  running  brooks 


In  the  days  before  we  went  to  Arden, 
Rosalind    and    I    had    often   wondered  I 
what  books  we  should  find  there,  and  j;j 
we   had    anticipated   with    the    keenest  , 
curiosity  that  in  the   mere   presence  or  I 
absence    of    certain    books    we    should  I 
discover   at   last    the  final    principle   of  I 
criticism,  the  absolute  standard  of  liter- 1 
ary  art*     Many  a  time  as  we  sat  before  I 
the  study  fire  and  finished  the  reading  \ 
of    some   volume  that   had   yielded  us  £ 
unmixed  delight,  we   had  said  to  each  I 
other  that  we   should  surely  find  it  in 
Arden,  and  read  it  again  in  an  atmos-  [ 
phere  in  which  the  most   delicate  and  I 
beautiful    meanings  would    become   as  | 
clear  as  the   exquisite  tracery  of  frost  | 
on  the  study  windows.     That  we  should  f 
find  all  the  classics  there  we  had  not  the 
least  doubt ;  who  could  imagine  a  com-  | 
munity    of    intelligent    persons  without ' 
Homer  and  Dante  and  Shakespeare  and 
Wordsworth!     How  the  volumes  would  I 


."•••',    i;  . 


be  housed  we  did  not  try  to  divine ;  but 
that  we  should  find  them  there  we  did 
not  think  of  doubting*  Our  chief  thought 
was  of  the  principle  of  selection,  long 
sought  after  by  lovers  of  books,  but 
never  yet  found,  which  we  were  certain 
would  be  easily  discovered  when  we 
came  to  look  along  the  shelves  of  the 
libraries  in  Arden.  With  what  delight 
we  anticipated  the  long  days  when  we 
should  read  together  again,  and  amid 
such  novel  surroundings,  the  books  we 
loved!  For,  although  our  home  con 
tained  few  luxuries,  it  had  fed  the  mind ; 
there  was  not  a  great  soul  in  literature 
whose  name  was  not  on  the  shelves  of 
our  library,  and  the  companionships  of 
that  room  made  our  quiet  home  more 
rich  in  gracious  and  noble  influences 
than  many  a  palace* 

And  yet  we  had  been  in  the  Forest 
several  months  before  we  even  thought 
of  books;  so  absorbed  were  we  in  the 


m 


noble  life  of  the  place,  in  the  inspiring 
society  about  us.  There  came  a  morn 
ing,  however,  when,  as  I  looked  out 
into  the  shadows  of  the  deep  woods,  I 
recalled  a  wonderful  line  of  Dante's  that 
must  have  come  to  the  poet  as  he  passed 
through  some  silent  and  sombre  wood 
land  path*  Suddenly  I  remembered  that 
months  had  passed  since  we  had  opened 
a  book ;  we  whose  most  inspiring  hours 
had  once  been  those  in  which  we  read 
together  from  some  familiar  page*  For 
an  instant  I  felt  something  akin  to 
remorse;  it  seemed  as  if  I  had  been 
disloyal  to  friends  who  had  never 
failed  me  in  any  time  of  need*  But 
as  I  meditated  on  this  strange  forget- 
fulness  of  mine,  I  saw  that  in  Arden 
books  have  no  place  and  serve  no 
purpose.  Why  should  one  read  a  trans 
lation  when  the  original  work  lies  open 
and  legible  before  him?  Why  should 

one  watch  the  reflections  in  the  shad- 

85 


owy  surface  of  the  lake  when  the 
heavens  shine  above  him  ?  Why  should 
one  linger  before  the  picturesque  land 
scape  which  art  has  imperfectly  trans 
ferred  to  canvas  when  the  scene,  with 
all  its  elusive  play  of  light  and  shade, 
lies  outspread  before  him?  I  became 
conscious  that  |  in  Arden  one  lives 
habitually  in  the  world  which  books 
are  always  striving  to  portray  and  in 
terpret  ;  that  one  sees  with  his  own 
eyes  all  that  the  eyes  of  the  keenest 
observer  have  ever  seen;  that  one 
feels  in  his  own  soul  all  the  greatest 
soul  has  ever  felt<J  That  which  in  the 
outer  world  most  men  know  only  by 
report,  in  Arden  each  one  knows  for 
himself*  The  stories  of  travellers  cease 
to  interest  us  when  we  are  at  last  within 
the  borders  of  the  strange,  far  country. 

Books  are,  at  the  best,  faint  and 
imperfect  transcriptions  of  Nature  and 
life;'  when  one  comes  to  see  Nature 

86 


as  she  is  with  his  own  eyes,  and  to 
enter  into  the  secrets  of  life,  all  tran 
scriptions  become  inadequate.  He  who 
has  heard  the  mysterious  and  haunting 
monotone  of  the  sea  will  never  rest 
content  with  the  noblest  harmony  in 
which  the  composer  seeks  to  blend 
those  deep,  elusive  tones;  he  who  has 
sat  hour  by  hour  under  the  spell  of 
the  deep  woods  will  feel  that  spell 
shorn  of  its  magical  power  in  the 
noblest  verse  that  ever  sought  to  con 
tain  and  express  it;  he  who  has  once 
looked  with  clear,  unflinching  gaze  into 
the  depths  of  human  life  will  find  only 
vague  shadows  of  the  mighty  realities 
in  the  greatest  drama  and  fiction.  The 
eternal  struggle  of  art  is  to  utter  these 
unutterable  things;  the  immortal  thirst 
of  the  soul  will  lead  it  again  and  again 
to  these  ancient  fountains,  whence  it 
will  bring  back  its  handful  of  water 

in  vessels  curiously  carven  by  the  hands 

87 


• 


of  imagination*  But  no  cup  of  man's 
making  will  ever  hold  all  that  fountain 
has  to  give,  and  to  those  who  are 
really  athirst  these  golden  and  beauti 
fully  wrought  vessels  are  insufficient; 
they  must  drink  of  the  living  stream* 
In  Arden  we  found  these  ancient  and 
perennial  fountains;  and  we  drank  deep 
and  long*  There  was  that  in  the  mys 
tery  of  the  woods  which  made  all 
poetry  seem  pale  and  unreal  to  us; 
there  was  that  in  life,  as  we  saw  it  in 
the  noble  souls  about  us,  which  made 
all  records  and  transcriptions  in  books 
seem  cold  and  superficial*  What  need 
had  we  of  verse  when  the  things  which 
the  greatest  poets  had  seen  with  vision 
no  clearer  than  ours  lay  clear  and  un 
speakably  beautiful  before  us?  What 
had  fiction  or  history  for  us,  upon  whom 
the  thrilling  spell  of  the  deepest  human 
living  was  laid !  Rosalind  and  I  were 
hourly  meeting  those  whose  thoughts 


88 


had  fed  the  world  for  generations,  and 
whose  names  were  on  all  lips,  but  they 
never  spoke  of  the  books  they  had  writ 
ten,  the  pictures  they  had  painted,  the 
music  they  had  composed*  And,  strange 
to  say,  it  was  not  because  of  these 
splendid  works  that  we  were  drawn 
to  them;  it  was  the  quality  of  their 
natures,  the  deep,  compelling  charm  of 
their  minds,  which  filled  us  with  joy  in 
their  companionship*  In  Arden  it  is  a 
small  matter  that  Shakespeare  has 
written  "Hamlet,"  or  Wordsworth  the 
"  Ode  on  Immortality  " ;  I  not  that  which 
they  have  accomplished  out  that  which 
they  are  in  themselves  gives  these 
names  a  lustre!  in  Arden  such  as  shines 
from  no  crown  of  fame  in  the  outer 
world.  Rosalind  and  I  had  dreamed 
that  we  might  meet  some  of  those 
whose  words  had  been  the  food  of 
immortal  hope  to  us,  but  we  almost 

dreaded  that  nearer  acquaintance  which 

s9 


might  dispel  the  illusion  of  superiority. 
How  delighted  were  we  to  discover  that 
/not  only  are  great  souls,  really  under 
stood,  greater  than  all  their  works*,  but 
that  the  works  were  forgotten  and 
nothing  was  remembered  but  the  soul! 
Not  as  those  who  are  fed  by  the  bounty 
of  the  king,  but  as  kings  ourselves,  were 
we  received  into  this  noble  company. 
Were  we  not  born  to  the  same  inheri 
tance  ?  Were  not  Nature  and  life  ours 
as  truly  as  they  were  Shakespeare's  and 
Wordsworth's  ?  As  we  sat  at  rest 
under  the  great  arms  of  the  trees,  or 
roamed  at  will  through  the  woodland 
paths,  the  one  thought  that  was  com 
mon  to  us  all  was,  not  how  nobly  these 
scenes  had  been  pictured  and  spoken, 
but  how  far  above  all  language  of  art 
they  were,  and  how  shallow  runs  the 
stream  of  speech  when  these  mysterious 
treasures  of  feeling  and  insight  are 
launched  upon  it ! 


CJO 


.  *  »  every  day 
Men  of  great  worth  resorted 
to  this  forest 


The  friendship  of  Nature  is  matched 
in   Arden  with   human  friendships,  as 
sincere,  as  void  of  disguise  and  flattery, 
|  as   stimulating   and   satisfying*      There 
are  times  when  every  sensitive  person 
is    wounded    by    misunderstanding    of 
motives,  by  lack  of  sympathy,  by  indif 
ference  and  coldness;  such  hours  came 
not  infrequently  to  Rosalind  and  myself 
in  the  old  days  before  we  set  out  for  the 
Forest.     We  found  unfailing  consolation  I 
and  strength  in  our  common  faith  and 
purpose,  but  the  frigidity  of  the  atmos-  } 
phere  made  us  conscious  at  times  of  the  \ 
effort  one  puts  forth  to  simply  sustain  j 
the   life   of    his   ideals,   the   charm   and  < 
sweetness  of  those  secret  hopes  which  I 
feed  the  soul.     What  must  it  be  to  live  \ 
among  those  who  are  quick  to  recog 
nise  nobility  of  motive,  to  conspire  with 
aspiration,   to  believe   in  the  best    and 
highest  in  each  other  ?     It  was  to  taste 
such  a  life  as  this,  to  feel  the  consoling 


power  of  mutual  faith  and  the  inspi 
ration  of  a  common  devotion  to  the 
ideals  that  were  dearest  to  us,  that  our 
thoughts  turned  so  often  and  with  such 
longing  to  Arden.  In  such  moments 
we  opened  with  delight  certain  books 
which  were  full  of  the  joy  and  beauty  of 
the  Forest  life;  books  which  brought 
back  the  dreams  that  were  fading  out 
and  touched  us  afresh  with  the  un 
searchable  charm  and  beauty  of  the 
Ideal  Surely  there  could  no  better 
fortune  befall  us  than  to  be  able  to  call 
these  great  ministering  spirits  our 
friends* 

But,  strong  as  was  our  longing,  we 
were  not  without  misgivings  when  we 
first  found  ourselves  in  Arden.  In  this 
commerce  of  ideas  and  hopes,  what  had 
we  to  give  in  exchange?  How  could 
we  claim  that  equality  with  those  we 
longed  to  know  which  is  the  only  basis 
of  friendship?  We  were  unconsciously 


94 


carrying  into  the  Forest  the  limitations 
of  our  old  life,  and  among  all  the  glad 
surprises  that  awaited  us  there  was 
none  so  joyful  as  the  discovery  that  our 
misgivings  vanished  as  soon  as  we 
began  to  know  our  neighbours.  Neither 
iis;;;  of  us  will  ever  forget  the  perfect  joy  of 
those  earliest  meetings;  a  joy  so  great 
that  we  wondered  if  it  could  endure* 
|  There  is  nothing  so  satisfying  as  quick 
comprehension  of  one's  hopes,  instant 
sympathy  with  them,  absolute  frankness 
of  speech,  and  the  brilliant  and  stimu 
lating  play  of  mind  upon  mind  where 
there  is  complete  unconsciousness  of  self 
and  complete  absorption  in  the  idea  and 
the  hour«[  There  was  something  almost 
intoxicating  in  those  first  wonderful 
talks  in  Arden;  we  seemed  suddenly 
not  only  to  be  perfectly  understood  by 
others,  but  for  the  first  time  to  under 
stand  ourselves;  the  horizons  of  our 
mental  world  seemed  to  be  swiftly 


95 


. 


receding,  and  new  continents  of  truth 
were  lifted  up  into  the  clear  light  of 
consciousness.  All  that  was  best  in  us 
was  set  free ;  we  were  confident  where 
we  had  been  uncertain  and  doubtful; 
we  were  bold  where  we  had  been 
almost  cowardly.  We  spoke  our  deep 
est  thought  frankly ;  we  drew  from  their 
hiding-places  our  noblest  dreams  of  the 
life  we  hoped  to  live  and  the  things  we 
hoped  to  'achieve ;  we  concealed  nothing, 
reserved  nothing,  evaded  nothing;  we 
were  desirous  above  all  things  that 
others  should  know  us  as  we  knew  our 
selves.  It  was  especially  restful  and 
refreshing  to  speak  of  our  failures  and 
weaknesses,  of  our  struggles  and  de 
feats  ;  for  these  experiences  of  ours  were 
instantly  matched  by  kindred  experi 
ences,  and  in  the  common  sympathy 
and  comprehension  a  new  kind  of 
strength  came  to  us.  The  humiliation 
of  defeat  was  shared,  we  found,  by  even 


the  greatest ;  and  that  which  made  these 
noble   souls   what   they  were  was   not< 
freedom  from  failure  and  weakness,  but 
steadfast     struggle     to     overcome     and 
achieve.      As  the  life   of  a   new  hope 
filled  our  hearts,  we  remembered  with  a  ^ 
sudden  pain  the  world  out  of  which  we  \ 
|  had  escaped,  where  every  one  hides  his 
"1  weakness  lest  it  feed  a  vulgar  curiosity, 
3  and   conceals  his   defeats    lest    they   be 
;  used  to  destroy  rather  than  to  build  him 

;;  up. 

With  what  delight  did  we  find  that  in 
Arden  the  talk  touched  only  great 
themes,  in  a  spirit  of  beautiful  candour 
and  unaffected  earnestness!  To  have| 
exchanged  the  small  personal  talk  from 
which  we  had  often  been  unable  to 
escape  for  this  simple,  sincere  discourse 
on  the  things  that  were  of  common 
interest  was  like  exchanging  the  cloud- 
enveloped  lowland  for  some  sunny 
mountain  slope,  where  every  breath 


97 


1  '     •'•   "-^;       '          !•-•>.'    V' 


was  vital  and  one  mused  on  half  a  con 
tinent  spread  out  at  his  feet*  [There 
no  food  for  the  soul  but  truth}  and  we 
were  filled  with  a  mighty  hunger  when 
we  understood  for  how  long  a  time  we 
had  been  but  half  fed.  A  new  strength 
came  to  us,  and  with  it  an  openness  of 
mind  and  a  responsiveness  of  heart  that 
made  life  an  inexhaustible  joy*  We 
were  set  free  from  the  weariness  of  old 
struggles  to  make  ourselves  understood; 
we  were  no  longer  perplexed  with 
doubts  about  the  reality  of  our  ideas; 
we  had  but  to  speak  the  thought  that 
was  in  us,  and  to  live  fearlessly  and 
joyously  in  the  hour  that  was  before  us. 
Frank  speaking,  absolute  candour,  that 
would  once  have  wounded,  now  only 
cheered  and  stimulated;  the  spirit  of 
entire  helpfulness  drives  out  all  morbid 
self-consciousness*  Differences  no  longer 
embitter  when  courtesy  and  faith  are 

universal  possessions. 

98 


I 


There  is  nothing  more  sacred  than 
friendship,  and  it  is  impossible  to  profane 
it  by  drawing  the  veil  from  its  minis 
tries.  The  charm  of  a  perfectly  noble 
companionship  between  two  souls  is  as 
real  as  the  perfume  of  a  flower,  and  as 
impossible  to  convey  by  word  or  speech ; 
Nature  has  made  its  sanctity  inviolable 
by  making  it  forever  impossible  of  reve 
lation  and  transference*  I  cannot  trans 
late  into  any  language  the  delicate  ! 
charm,  the  inexhaustible  variety,  the  , 
noble  fidelity  to  truth,  the  vigour  and 
splendour  of  thought,  the  unfailing  sym-  J 
pathy,  of  our  Arden  friendships;  they  j 
are  a  part  of  the  Forest,  and  one  must 
seek  them  there*  It  would  vulgarise 
these  fellowships  to  catalogue  the  great 
names,  always  familiar  to  us,  and  yet 
which  gained  another  and  a  better  famil 
iarity  when  they  ceased  to  recall  famous 
persons  and  became  associated  with 
those  who  sat  at  our  hearthstone 


or 


ins 


gathered  about  our  simple  board*     R 
alind  was  sooner  at  home  in  this  noble  if: 
company  than  I :   she   had  far  less   to  f  *, 
learn;  but  at  last  I  grew  into  a  famil-  | 
iarity  with  my  neighbours  which  was  all 
the  sweeter  to  me  because  it  registered 
a  change  in  myself  long  hoped  for,  often 
despaired  of,  at  last  accomplished*     To 
be  at  one  with  Nature  was  a  joy  which 
made  life  seem  rich  beyond  all  earlier  * 
thought;    but  when  to  this  there  was  % 
added  the  fellowship  of   spirits  as  true  ^ 
and  great  as  Nature  herself,  the  wine  of  |1« 
life  overflowed  the   exquisite   cup   into 
which    an    invisible    hand    poured    it* 
The  days  passed  like  a  dream  as  we 
strayed  together  through  the  woodland 
paths;    sometimes    in    some    deep    and 
shadowy  glen  silence  laid  her  finger  on 
our  lips,  and  in  a  common  mood  we 
found  ourselves  drawn  together  without 
speech*      Often    at    night,    when    the 
magic    of    the    moon    has    woven    all 


\  <• 


!•  :    • 


manner  of  enchantments  about  us,  we 
have  lingered  hour  after  hour  under  that 
supreme  spell  which  is  felt  only  when 
soul  speaks  with  soul. 


.  .  there 's  no  clock  in  the  forest 


There  were  a  great  many  days  in 
Arden  when  we  did  absolutely  nothing ; 

;*  we  awoke  without  plans ;  we  fell  asleep 
without  memories.  This  was  especially 
true  of  the  earlier  part  of  our  stay  in  the 
Forest;  the  stage  of  intense  enjoyment 
of  new-found  freedom  and  repose. 
There  was  a  kind  of  rapture  in  the 
possession  of  our  days  that  was  new  to 
us;  a  sense  of  ownership  of  time  of 
which  we  had  never  so  much  as 
dreamed  when  we  lived  by  the  clock. 
Those  tiny  ornamental  hands  on  the 
delicately  painted  dial  were  our  task 
masters,  disguised  under  forms  so  dainty 
and  fragile  that,  while  we  felt  their 
tyranny,  we  never  so  much  as  suspected 
their  share  in  our  servitude.  Silent 
|H  themselves,  they  issued  their  commands 

|| in  tones  we  dared  not  disregard;  fash 
ioned  so  cunningly,  they  ruled  us  as 
with  iron  sceptres;  moving  within  so 
small  a  circle,  they  sent  us  hither  and 


yon  on  every  imaginable  service*  They 
severed  eternity  into  minute  fragments, 
and  dealt  it  out  to  us  minute  by  minute 
like  a  cordial  given  drop  by  drop  to  the 
dying;  they  marked  with  relentless 
exactness  the  brief  periods  of  our  leisure 
and  indicated  the  hours  of  our  toil*  We 
could  not  escape  from  their  vigilant  and 
inexorable  surveillance;  day  and  night 
they  kept  silent  record  beside  us,  meas 
uring  out  the  golden  light  of  summer  in 
their  tiny  balances,  and  doling  out  the 
pittance  of  winter  sunshine  with  nig 
gardly  reluctance*  They  hastened  to 
the  end  of  our  joys,  and  moved  with 
funereal  slowness  through  the  appointed 
times  of  our  sorrow*  They  ruled  every 
season,  pervaded  every  clay,  recorded 
every  hour,  and,  like  misers  hoarding  a 
treasure,  doled  out  our  birthright  of 
leisure  second  by  second ;  so  that,  being  r 
rich,  we  were  always  impoverished; 
inheritors  of  vast  fortune,  we  were  put 


106 


Ik'CSjVf ' 

MK 


lK^^3^H 
m^'SSBii 


off   with 


we 


a  meagre  income ;  born  free, 
were  servants  of  masters  who 
neither  ate  nor  slept,  that  they  might 
never  for  a  second  surrender  their 
overseership. 

There  are  no  clocks  in  Arden;  the 
sun  bestows  the  day,  and  no  imperti 
nence  of  men  destroys  its  charm  by 
calculating  its  value  and  marking  it  with 
a  price*  The  only  computers  of  time 
are  the  great  trees  whose  shadows 
register  the  unbroken  march  of  light 
from  east  to  west*  Even  the  days  and 
nights  lost  that  painful  distinctness 
which  they  had  for  us  when  they  gave 
us  a  constant  sense  of  loss,  an  incessant 
apprehension  of  change  and  age*  Their 
shining  procession  leaves  no  such 
records  in  Arden;  they  come  like  the 
waves  whose  ceaseless  flow  sings  of  the 
boundless  sea  whence  they  come.  They 
bring  no  consciousness  of  ebbing  years 

and    joys    and    strength;    they    bring 

107 


rather  a  sense  of  eternal  resource  and 
j  beneficence*  In  Arden  one  never  feels 
!in  haste;  there  is  always  time  enough 
iand  to  spare;  in  fact,  the  word  time  is 
never  used  in  the  vernacular  of  the 
Forest  except  when  reference  is  made  to 
the  enslaved  world  without*  There 
were  moments  at  the  beginning  when 
we  felt  a  little  bewildered  by  our  free 
dom,  and  I  think  Rosalind  secretly 
longed  for  the  familiar  tones  of  the 
cuckoo  clock  which  had  chimed  so 
many  years  in  and  out  for  us  in  the  old 
days*  One  must  get  accustomed  even 
to  good  fortune,  and  after  one  has  been 
confined  within  the  narrow  limits  of  a 
little  plot  of  earth  the  possession  of  a 
continent  confuses  and  perplexes*  But 
men  are  born  to  good  fortune  if  they  but 
[knew  it,  and  we  were  soon  reconciled  to 
fthe  possession  of  inexhaustible  wealth* 
We  felt  the  delight  of  a  sudden  exchange 
of  poverty  for  richness,  a  swift  transition 


108 


m 


from  bondage  to  freedom.  Eternity  was 
ours,  and  we  ceased  to  divide  it  into 
fragments,  or  to  set  it  off  into  duties  and 
work*  We  lived  in  the  consciousness  of 
a  vast  leisure;  a  quiet  happiness  took 
the  place  of  the  old  anxiety  to  always  do 
at  the  moment  the  thing  that  ought  to  be 
done;  we  accepted  the  days  as  gifts  of 
joy  rather  than  as  bringers  of  care. 

It  was  delightful  to  fall  asleep  lulled 
by  the  rustle  of  the  leaves,  and  to 
awake,  without  memory  of  care  or 
pressure  of  work,  to  a  day  that  had 
brought  nothing  more  discordant  into 
the  Forest  than  the  singing  of  birds. 
We  rose  exhilarated  and  buoyant,  and 
breakfasted  merrily  under  a  great  oak; 
sometimes  we  lingered  far  on  into  the 
morning,  yielding  ourselves  to  the  spell 
of  the  early  day  when  it  no  longer 
proses  of  work  and  duty,  but  sings  of 
freedom  and  ease  and  the  strength  that 
makes  a  play  of  life.  Often  we  strayed 


109 


without  plan  or  purpose,  as  the  winding 
paths  of  the  Forest  led  us;  happy  and 
care-free  as  children  suddenly  let  loose 
in    fairyland*      We    discovered    moss- 
grown  paths  which  led   into  the  very 
heart  of  the  Forest,  and  we  pressed  on 
silently  from  one  green  recess  to  another 
until  all  memory  of  the  sunnier  world 
faded    out    of    mind*      Sometimes    we 
emerged  suddenly  into  a  wide,  brilliant 
glade ;  sometimes  we  came  into  a  sane- 
tuary  so  overhung  with  great  masses  of  "'If 
foliage,  so  secluded  and  silent,  that  wej| 
took  the  rude  pile  of  moss-grown  stones 
we  found  there  as  an  altar  to  solitude,  ^j 
and  our    stillness   became   part    of   theUj 
universal     worship     of     silence     which 
touched  us  with  a  deep   and   beautiful  || 
solemnity.      Wherever  we   strayed  the 
same  tranquil  leisure  enfolded  us;  dayi 
followed  day  in  an  order  unbroken  andi   _ 
peaceful  as  the  unfolding  of  the  flowers^ 
and  the  silent  march  of  the  stars*     Time!" 


no  longer  ran  like  the  few  sands  in  a 
delicate  hour-glass  held  by  a  fragile 
human  hand,  but  like  a  majestic  river 
fed  by  fathomless  seas.  The  sky,  bare 
and  free  from  horizon  to  horizon,  was 
itself  a  symbol  of  eternity,  with  its 
infinite  depth  of  colour,  its  sublime 
serenity,  its  deep  silence  broken  only 
by  the  flight  and  songs  of  birds.  These 
were  at  home  in  that  ethereal  sphere, 
at  rest  in  that  boundless  space,  and 
we  were  not  slow  to  learn  the  lesson 
of  their  freedom  and  joy.  We  gave 
ourselves  up  to  the  sweetness  of  that 
unmeasured  life,  without  thought  offe 
yesterday  or  to-morrow ;  we  drank  the 
cup  which  to-day  held  to  our  lips,  and,  J 
knew  that  so  long  as  we  were  athirst 
that  draught  would  not  be  denied  us."; 


.,     .1 :    ._ 


*  .  .  every  of  this  happy  number 

That  have  endur'd  shrewd  nights  and 

days  with  us, 
Shall   share  the  good  of  our  returned 

fortune, 
According  to  the  measure  of  their  states 


; 


There  is  this  great  consolation  for 
those  who  cannot  live  continually  in 
the  Forest  of  Arden:  that,  having 
once  proven  one's  citizenship  there, 
Hone  can  return  at  will*  Those  who 
have  lived  in  Arden  and  have  gone 
back  again  into  the  world,  are  sus 
tained  in  their  loneliness  by  the  knowl 
edge  of  their  fellowship  with  a  nobler 
community*  Aliens  though  they  are, 
they  have  yet  a  country  to  which  they 
iare  loyal,  not  through  interest,  but 
through  aspiration,  imagination,  faith, 
and  love*  Rosalind  and  I  found  the 
months  in  Arden  all  too  brief;  our  life 
there  was  one  long  golden  day,  whose 
sunset  cast  a  soft  and  tender  light 
.on  our  whole  past  and  made  it 
beautiful  for  us*  It  is  one  of  the 
delights  of  the  Forest  that  only  the 
noblest  aspects  of  life  are  visible  there; 
or,  rather,  that  the  hard  and  bare 
details  of  livine.  seen  in  the  atmos- 


phere   of  Arden,   yield    some    truth   of 
character  or  experience  which,  like  the 
rose,  makes  even  the  rough  calyx  which 
encased    it   beautiful      We  had   some 
times   spoken    together    of    our    return 
to  the  world  we   had  left,  but  we   put 
off  as  long  as  possible  all  definite  prep 
arations*     I  am  not  sure   that  I  should 
|  ever  have   come   back   if  Rosalind  had 
not   taken    the    matter    into    her  own 
'I  hands*       She    remembered    that    there 
|  was   work   to    be   done    which    ought 
I  not  to  be  longer    postponed;  that  there 
f  were  duties  to  be  met  which  ought  not 
to   be   longer   evaded ;    and   when  did 
Rosalind  fail  to  be  or  to  do  that  which 
the    hour    and    the    experience     com 
manded?     We  treasured  the  last  days 
as    if    the    minutes    were    pure    gold; 
we  lingered   in   talk  with   our    friends 
as    if    we     should    never    again    hear 
such  spoken  words;  we  loitered  in  the 
woods  as  if  the  spell  of  that  beautiful 

116 


or  -oat 

UNIVERSITY 


silence  would  never  again  touch  us* 
And  yet  we  knew  that,  once  pos 
sessed,  these  things  were  ours  for  ever ; 
neither  care,  nor  change,  nor  time, 
nor  death,  could  take  them  from  us, 
for  henceforth  they  were  part  of  our 
selves* 

We  stood  again  at  length  on  the 
little  porch,  covered  with  dust,  and 
turned  the  key  in  the  unused  lock* 
I  think  we  were  both  a  little  reluctant 
to  enter  and  begin  again  the  old  round 
of  life  and  work*  The  house  seemed 
smaller  and  less  homelike,  the  furniture 
had  lost  its  freshness,  the  books  on 
the  shelves  looked  dull  and  faded* 
Rosalind  ran  to  a  window,  opened  it, 
and  let  in  a  flood  of  sunshine*  I  con 
fess  I  was  beginning  to  feel  a  little 
heartsick,  but  when  the  light  fell  on 
her  I  remembered  the  rainy  day  in 
Arden,  when  the  first  rays  after  the 

storm    touched    her    and   dispelled    the 

117 

;;/.'•,,..,..  r  ,,..'-  ; 


HBS 


gloom,  and  I  realised,  with  a  joy  too 
deep  for  words  or  tears,  that  1 1  had 
brought  the  best  of  Arden  with  me.[ 
We  talked  little  during  those  first  days 
of  our  home-coming,  but  we  set  the 
house  in  order,  we  recalled  to  the 
lonely  rooms  the  old  associations,  and 
we  quietly  took  up  the  cares  and  bur 
dens  we  had  dropped.  It  was  not 
easy  at  first,  and  there  were  days  when 
we  were  both  heartsore;  but  we  waited 
and  worked  and  hoped.  Our  neigh 
bours  found  us  more  silent  and  absorbed 
than  of  old,  but  neither  that  change  nor 
our  absence  seemed  to  have  made 
any  impression  upon  them.  Indeed,  we 
even  doubted  if  they  knew  that  we 
had  taken  such  a  journey.  Day  by 
day  we  stepped  into  the  old  places  and 
fell  into  the  old  habits,  until  all  the 
broken  threads  of  our  life  were  reunited 
and  we  were  apparently  as  much  a  part 
of  the  world  as  if  we  had  never  gone 


nS 


' 


out  of  it  and  found  a  nobler  and  happier 
sphere. 

But  there   came   to    us  gradually  a 
clear     consciousness    that,    though    we 
were  in  the  world,  we  were  not  of  it,  | 
nor   ever  again  could  be.      It   was   no  ]/ 
longer    our    world;    its    standards,    its  •• 
thoughts,  its  pleasures,  were  not  for  us*  ; 
We  were  not  lonely  in  it;  on  the  con 
trary,    when    the    first    impression    of 
strangeness  wore  off,  we  were   happier 
than  we  had  ever  been  in  the  old  days* 
Our   reputation  was    no    longer  in  the 
breath  of   men;    our    fortune   was    no  [ 
longer  at  the  mercy  of  rising  or  falling 
markets;  our  plans  and  hopes  were  no 
longer  subject  to    chance    and   change* 
We  had  a  possession  in  the  Forest  of  \ 
Arden,  and  we  had  friends  and  dreams 
there    beyond    the  empire  of    time  and 
fate*       And   when    we    compared    the  \ 
security  of  our  fortunes  with  the  vicis 
situdes  to    which   the    estates    of    our  ; 


neighbours  were  exposed;  when  we 
compared  our  noble-hearted  friends 
with  their  meaner  companionships; 
when  we  compared  the  peaceful  seren 
ity  of  our  hearts  with  their  perplexities 
and  anxieties,  we  were  filled  with  in 
expressible  sympathy.  We  no  longer 
pierced  them  with  the  arrows  of  satire 
and  wit  because  they  accepted  lower 
standards  and  found  pleasure  in  things 
essentially  pleasureless ;  they  had  not 
lived  in  Arden,  and  why  should  we 
berate  them  for  not  possessing  that 
which  had  never  been  within  their 
reach  ?  We  saw  that  upon  those  whom 
an  inscrutable  fate  has  led  through  the 
paths  of  Arden  a  great  and  noble  duty 
is  laid.  They  are  not  to  be  the  scorners 
and  despisers  of  those  whose  eyes  are 
holden  that  they  cannot  see,  and  whose 
ears  are  stopped  that  they  cannot  hear, 
the  vision  and  the  melody  of  things 
ideal.  They  are  rather  to  be  eyes  to 


are  to  interpret  in  unshaken  trust  and 
patience  that  which  has  been  revealed 
to  them ;  servants  are  they  of  the  Ideal, 
and  their  ministry  is  their  exceeding  great 
reward*  So  long  as  they  see  clearly, 
it  is  small  matter  to  them  that  their 
message  is  rejected,  the  mighty  conso 
lation  which  they  bring  refused;  their 
joy  does  not  hang  on  acceptance  or 
rejection  at  the  hands  of  their  fellows* 
The  only  real  losers  are  those  who  will 
not  see  nor  hear*  It  is  not  the  light- 
bringer  who  suffers  when  the  torch  is 
torn  from  his  hands ;  it  is  those  whose 
paths  he  would  lighten* 

And  more  and  more,  as  the  days 
went  by,  Rosalind  and  I  found  the  life 
of  the  Forest  stealing  into  our  old 
home*  The  old  monotony  was  gone; 
the  old  weariness  and  depression  crossed 
our  threshold  no  more*  If  work  was 
pressing,  we  were  always  looking 


looking     into 

^lg| Rosalind's     eyes?       It     matters     little  8 
whether  I  have  travelled   or   dreamed;  p|?F 
where  Rosalind  is,  there,  for  me  at  least,  Mm 
lies  the  Forest  of  Arden, 


Tl 


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